The Syria The Media Won't Show You 🇸🇾

it's nine o'clock in the morning here in beirut so i've just flown into the region for the first time the middle east is a region of the world that to be honest i've never visited and i know practically nothing about it's very noisy but i want to change that i want to come here and travel around and meet some people and learn a little bit about this part of the world it's not very soviet i can tell you that already so um join me as we make our way now to syria what images come to mind when you think of the country of syria i'm guessing for most of us it's pretty horrific things and that's because for the last decade the media has shown us only images of war destruction and the suffering of civilians when reporting on the country and of course all those things are true the syrian crisis has been a catastrophe for the people of that nation however i want to go and see for myself a little of what syria is like now in 2022 surely there had to be more to this middle eastern country than what the media was showing us i had no idea but i decided to head there and try and find out and perhaps humanize and change the perception of the nation a little in my own mind and perhaps in yours too [Applause] legends right then let's try and find a taxi that's going to take us to ancient damascus begin our adventure taxi yes please gobbler hello there can you stop hey stop what are you doing hey benjamin where are you going we're going to meet you i'm abdullah abdullah nice to meet you abdullah we're going to damascus ancient damascus i actually have no idea how are you mr wilson yeah good man long time no see i know i thought i thought i'd lost you in ethiopia me are you ready to try some local delicacies me the mcdonald's out there supposed to be great can't wait let's do it syrian big mac so how do i say how are you in arabic hello are you lying to me does this mean something bad all along the side of this highway that's heading down to the border with syria it's just refugee camps if you look outside the window you can see lots of little shacks and huts there they are and those are the camps of the displaced people from the decade-long war in syria they've moved to lebanon to escape the violence we're literally about 100 feet away from the border with syria now you can see the guards are already here and you can see the checkpoint just up there well we're on the very border now i've got my passport ready going to go in and get stamped out of lebanon can i just show you though the old mercedes there are just mercedes everywhere old mercedes from europe everywhere you go ladders in the soviet union but in the middle east it seems old mercedes check them out everywhere big old beasts let's um go and give our passport get stamped out of lebanon probably gotta put my camera away yes that's it we've been stabbed out of lebanon and now we're gonna try and get into syria here we go italy unbelievable this is my granddad if you are a crew british yes what the these images for whom this which i mean okay which one this is um shakespeare i don't know who is it no it's not true i don't know i have no idea i'm a fake british cheers boy wow what friendly people on the border i know people are friendly in the middle east who knew that you don't get that when you turn up a heathrow making jokes with you testing your knowledge of britain okay wow this guy's checking in the boots well we're now driving through no man's land between the two checkpoints between lebanon and syria and we've just seen a billboard on the first picture of the president of syria bashar al-assad abdullah just taught me how to say that well we're um we're still on the syrian border we've swapped cars our driver abdullah has left us returned to lebanon and um we've got a new guy who's going to be our guide or our driver at least while we're here in syria so um yeah we're still not into syria proper yet we're still on the border so i'm a little bit circumspect with the filming but almost in already got our visas 140 bloody dollars for a visa absolute rip-off myself and simon are just jumping out our car quickly here on the border because up ahead is a sign that you don't see too often in life and that is a road sign saying welcome to syria yep okay sir sharp thank you very much i appreciate that guys this is a very difficult trip to make to old syria just across the board and we can begin our journey and to make it happen i want to thank surf shark for sponsoring the video now what is surf shark well let me tell you they're a vpn provider an app that you download on your computer or on your phone that keeps you safe and me safe by encrypting our data that's right you put servshark on and then foreign governments and anyone with bad intentions can't spy on you is that all of course it's not all surf shark wouldn't do you like that let me tell you what else surf shark let's yeah watch netflix from flipping anywhere in the world any country you want by changing or unique vpn address now what do you think i'm doing here in flipping syria when i'm driving through the desert looking at rocks and sound talking to simon wilson hell no i'm watching netflix but what kind of netflix they show here in syria i'm going to tell you syrian flippin rom-coms probably which actually might be quite funny if you speak syrian which i don't so i want to watch a bit of netflix from america from england from france from germany from anywhere and you know how i do that i download the app from flipping surf shark and i can change my vpn to one of those countries and watch films from that country download surf shark by clicking on the link in the description and putting into it the code bankrupt and you get 83 off and three months for flipping free can you get any more generous than that no so do it and thanks surf shark for sponsoring this video just like i'm about to do thank you sir shark you lovely people let's continue simon wilson let's explore syria what's especially interesting to me is that as we pull into the outskirts of damascus is seeing the road signs for cities i've only heard about in well yeah on the news i suppose places like homs and aleppo to see street signs pointing in their direction it's just really interesting for me to see them with my own eyes so i'm really yeah looking forward to exploring anyway a little bit damascus and then further afield in this country we've arrived in wonderful damascus myself and simon we're going to meet the man soon who's going to guide us around syria let's hope he's a nice guy we'll see when we meet him but he's like hello there hello hello are you from damascus uh we are originally from hama from hamala okay okay but we i was born and raised here okay and who is this your sister my mom stop it thank you i don't know what you said but thank you so much hello my friend how are you pleased to meet you benjamin and my friend simon hi how are you boys what's your name sorry simon lovely to meet you wow it's great to be in damascus yeah actually it's great to see you in real because i saw you did you yeah we're not as impressive in real life we're walking through we're walking through damascus can you believe it we're actually in damascus look at damascus wow hey guys how you doing wow friendly damaskian people anyway let's go find the hotel we've got excuse me ladies thank you that's okay um we're gonna go and find our hotel dump the bags and i suppose our man here ramy is gonna um how are you nice to meet you too simon has been a subscriber on the streets of damascus oh where are we this is our hotel they booked us into it says five star outside look at that look at it it's the um between oh where are we going where are you taking me secret corridors okay number 507. thank you let me have a look at this room wow it's a room for a king ow a clumsy kid wow super i'm happy with it thank you wow here we are then in old damascus let's check out the bathroom oh look at that a sink for a fair maiden from the crusades look at it and a shower with a little frilly curtain you don't get that in moldova or kyrgyzstan but you do in syria let's dump our bags and go out for a little exploration i like it so not a problem at all not a problem at all we are back on the streets of damascus and rami our mate has said we're going for the best shwarma in all of damascus or all of syria in the whole not all syria not only this part because you know it's really special because this garlic cream okay also the pomegranate sauce also really special shwarma with pomegranate sauce let's go check it out well look at the size of what the when you see a schwarmer in ukraine or in russia or somewhere like on the spit they're little things and here it's a look at that spinning round wow hello england and this is the priceless this says shwarma and that says chips and that says burger and that says very delicious come and get it pepsi that's how you write pepsi that's how you write pepsi in arabic cola this way it says cola cola who knew that you've got to read it backwards number one in damascus yes it's official pomegranate is the secret recipe you put a bit of pomegranate sauce and that's it you get the best schwarma in all of damascus here at um and you make friends in syria that's how friendly the people are [Music] we're just walking through a backstreet of damascus just after finishing our amazing trauma and look what we've stumbled upon this is how ancient damascus is it's been inhabited for thousands of years look at this just random random roman columns just here rotting away in a park check it out these aren't fake these are real and look here we've got ancient graffiti look ancient snoop dogg and diablo mars that graffiti is ancient but no being serious this is like amazing that you can walk through the back streets of a city and just stumble upon thousand year old columns where else can you do that rome probably or greece but yeah damascus too check it out well we've just jumped in a taxi with our new friend ramy because apparently there's a football match on today at the stadium so we're gonna go now to the football stadium and see a syrian football match let's go and check it out has he been a taxi driver for a long time was he a taxi driver during the war here in syria so taxis and things were still working in damascus at that time [Music] so they kept functioning and working despite all the you know fuel problems [Music] can you ask our friend to teach me the word friend in arabic so that i can use it on my trip sure how do you say that you are my sadiq sometimes only sometimes sometimes all the time what am i my tara all the time what is kara it means lovely person i don't trust simon and i think the word i mean something bad but we'll get to the bottom of this [Music] we're following some fans through damascus towards the stadium whoa we're at the stadium let's go watch some football look at the tickets here they look like they were just printed on a we are damascus yes yeah okay good damascus okay penalty to latakia let's see if they score it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i don't understand the sense of humor they're talking about the other team scored but the damascus fans are celebrating i don't know i don't know why we're in the away we're with latakia and i've been shouting come on damascus i have got my head kicked in flip it come on latakia yes yes [Applause] the damascus team has left the pitch in protest at the penalty they're walking on [Music] so the rule is if damascus don't return to the picture within 10 minutes they forfeit the game the fact that they've even got that tells me tantrums happened quite a lot in syria [Applause] sign him up for chelsea legend yeah signing up for chelsea they're shy he's better than harry maguire the game has been called off latakia are the winners damascus are chickens well that was the um latakia versus damascus match bit of an anti-climax but what an introduction to what i think is going to be an awesome country it's all kicking off oh we're out into the beauty of damascus hello my friend hello beautiful damascus wow what a greeting as we begin day two it's the trio harold looks different our old is that you you know the trio we are beginning day two of our journey here in syria and today we're going to leave the capital and we're going to head north towards towns that well we've all heard of maybe in some senses not always for the best of reasons aleppo and homs where else do you get that sort of content hello surprise language guys as i was walking to the car you may have noticed i was carrying my own bags but simon makes the locals carry his bags look there's a man with his suitcase there you go there you go listen you want me to grab his suitcase for you you are a disgrace stop exploiting the locals stop exploiting the local syrians they've suffered enough already even those buildings that are damaged they need to well we've now left damascus behind and you don't have to go very far outside of the capital city to start seeing um well remnants of the of the conflict that took place here in syria um yeah i think now our journey is going to become a little bit different than what it has been so far we've just been pulled over another checkpoint on the road outside of damascus it seems that every few miles there's another military checkpoint who's a baddie who's a goodie in this conflict what happened here so what happened is there was a suicidal bomber by itself here in this spot and killed the syrian soldiers in september 2013 and then it is a signal for the other militants to sneak inside syria so they sneaked through the borders of lebanon and they came and they attacked this beautiful village they destroyed churches they destroyed mosques and they started to make people force people to execute the place well i'm here in the ancient village of malula a village that had been at peace for 3 000 years this place been habited for and that peace was shattered during the war when the nusra front attacked it and now you can see the scars of that war and what happened here in this village in malula everywhere you look let's go and have a look in what was once the town's hotel well walking through this hotel overlooking my lunar it just brings home to you the brutality the horror of the syrian conflict everywhere you look it's just bullet wounds bullet marks little pockmarked walls from shrapnel look here just a trolley that has just been torn apart by bullets walls missing rebar twisted everywhere you can't imagine kenya just the horrors that the people of syria suffered during this conflict half a million people were killed directly because of it and god knows how many millions more fled the country it's a wonder when you see places like this and well the the reminders of the war that anyone survived at all look at it everywhere you look hello sir very pleased to meet you great please meet you hello sir how are you hello sir hi how are you nice to meet you nice to meet you can you rami can you ask these gentlemen what their language is they communicate wow so we're in this village of malula and the people here speak exactly the same language unchanged that jesus himself would have spoken if jesus was if jesus was here walking these three gentlemen would have understood him perfectly and said all right jesus how's it going and jesus would have said yeah right lads in the language of aramaic wow he says if you want you can take him talking i can translate could i hear some aramaic yeah yeah okay we're having a little drinkie poos with this man in the shop here in malula ancient malula we're going to toast together to a happy syria cheers cheers michael michael michael his name is michael you don't look like any michael i've ever met before what about you and you too she is my girlfriend good old mike this is mike who works in the shop here in malula that smells amazing well i'm hiding the camera down below because we've just been pulled over at a checkpoint on the outskirts of homs but this isn't a military checkpoint this is like a faction a factional checkpoint no one here is wearing armor uniforms unlike all the other ones we've seen here they're wearing black uniforms yeah that's no joke they've all got guns as well yeah so um we have to be a little bit no that was not oh jesus can i have your passports please yeah they're in my bag guys welcome to homes well we're in the ancient city although we're in the new park of homs check it out the center of homs look at it these are the homsian people let's have a little walk up the street and see what we can find who's he talking to this gentleman talking to me yes brighton brighton the gay capital of england oh yeah exactly better be careful okay okay let's go yeah let's go straight on my friend show me the wonders of homs wow nice homes i like it exactly i was going to say that too but you said it for me thank you right where are we off to zakaria okay okay okay whoa interesting interesting wow this is the real homs the backstreets this is a kind of tourist non-tourist area that simon and ramy are afraid to come but not me and my mate mohammed we're coming down the back streets of homs check it out whoa yeah excuse me whoa very yellow for you there you go okay oh just a couple of dudes cruising around the back streets of homs facebook yeah youtube okay no problem yeah yes yes okay usafa wants to be on youtube with them hanzo okay holmes mustafa taxi people yup exactly exactly right [Music] finish finish finish i look for my sadix where is sadie brother thank you thank you thank you thank you brother hello no it's okay we're here in this part of homs you can really see well i suppose what you would expect of syria if you've been watching the news for the last god knows how many years i mean just bombed out buildings shopping centers what was before offices and apartment buildings everything just destroyed in this part of the city and that's because homs is in the very centre of syria and so it's one of the first cities to be attacked so that whoever controlled homs could control the rest of syria so to speak and if you're wondering why so many millions of syrians left the country well take a look at it and you'll understand why i think you'll agree with me when i say that homs looks just like belarus this is for petrol yeah people are pushing their cars we're on the road to aleppo filling up with some smuggled petrol from lebanon there's a lot of petrol smuggling here because of sanctions and because of the fact that the north of the country where syria's oil fields are are now under control of kurds and other people and so yeah it's difficult here to get petrol for your car and here by the side the road also there's a gentleman with some goats they will be going into some schwarmers at some point in the future wow you have beautiful goats which one is your favorite okay thank you yeah you're a great conversationalist and um nice meeting you we're on the road north to aleppo we're now coming into the region of idlib and idlib region is one of the most dangerous parts of the countries it's the last place or the last government as you could say on the way north to aleppo where there is still fighting taking place between different factions the towns and the villages of idlib are still being fought over by different groups the journey now until we get to aleppo is going to become a little bit more dangerous so we are now in khan chehun the city and then we will go all the way north to aleppo going through the road m5 right and the m5 basically this red colored areas are under the control of the government syrian government the green one under the control of nusrah qaeda you know the militants they have different titles but same ideology same mentality they are extremists so we will pass through this area and it is like three kilometer 30 kilometer away from the territories that on uh outside the control of the government well we've reached the outskirts of the city of aleppo as the sign says welcome to aleppo lovely people syrians but not the best spellers but anyway let's go and check out the city see what it's like i bet it's awesome well i must say i'm pretty impressed with aleppo so far it's all looking nice and untouched by the war or anything pretty buildings made of nice colored sandstone limestone sunstone but um even parks look at it there's a swimming pool aleppo city of dreams [Applause] nice to meet you thank you thank you that was a local elephant man and this is the kind of stuff he has to walk past every day on his way to the market to make a few bob look at it unlike in the center of the city the business district is completely untouched there pretty much i should say um but here in the old part of town where here you can see the real scars of battle that took place between the government forces and the al-nusra front the faction that took control of aleppo for a number of years and look at it everything has been damaged thank you wow an aleppo barber shop he sounds facing a lot of trimming hope he's not going too crazy well i don't want to turn off the three percent what's this is this man living in an upper in the wall here very painful yes the syrian experience are you [ __ ] kidding me what why are you doing this to me he is retaliating the british government was involved you will never have this experience anywhere else thank god thank you sir thank you very much thank you thank you very fresh am i am i looking better have i got a chance of finding a syrian wife now well just now you can find this finally yes presentable to their mothers and fathers i will try hard to find you one good look for wives you can actually see your double chin coming through well i know that it's peaceful in aleppo but of course the signs of the war everywhere i mean what's the future for syria how do you fix your problems how does all this end and you start rebuilding yeah so the first issue is that we have foreign interference in syria and that is the number one problem is that we don't need this interference we syrian people are really smart enough to solve our problems so i would say if the future of syria would be really good if those troops just leave syria and leave us syrian decide our faith and solve our problems you hear that foreign troops get out and as i say that look what is here in front of us a magnificent flipping castle hundreds of years old check it wow that is magnificent did you know did you be honest did you know that syria had ancient castles like this i didn't let's go and look inside and see what it's like flipping heck it's amazing you know when you're a kid and you draw a castle you basically draw this one look big old moat around it crenellated turreted walls flipping herc of course now it's showing the signs of modern battles but this castle this cast has been attacked by pretty much everyone throughout history the mongols the mongols came all the way from southern siberia all the way here to aleppo let's hack this castle let's go inside and check it out what a place syria is well for four years the syrian army was stationed up here on the very top of the old castle of aleppo for four years they fought off wave after wave of attack by different factions different factions who are trying to control the city of aleppo they were resupplied by helicopters and by the ancient tunnels that weave the way under aleppo and into the castle and now of course with the war in this part of country being over the citadel has returned to well being a tourist attraction and a place for the young lovers of aleppo to come and have a little kiss and a cuddle amongst the tall grasses and the old derelict buildings it's a romantic city as aleppo oh i'm from here nice to meet you thank you we're from aleppo damascus damascus we are basically trees thank you to the baron hotel hotel old hotel the oldest hotel in aleppo i see 1911. built in 1911. thank you 1911. let's go and see what it looks like inside i guess the christie stayed here for god's sake so it's good enough for agatha it's good enough for me oh wow oh wow check out the old map of syria archaeological map hey look at this place this is unchanged hello hello hello may i look at your beautiful hotel wow thank you look at this place this is a real time piece you've got the old telephone box and an old telephone you're joking look at it this is the kind of hotel that appeared in agatha christie novels someone would have been murdered probably the butler did it with a lead pipe in the library let's look around shane look at this look all this stuff boac they haven't flown for decades by suppose in the past we had fliers coming to aleppo from london you know this place was um well aleppo in syria was a place that people came to you know now of course it's off the tourist map because of what's happening with war and stuff but in the past people came to the old baron hotel check it out we're going upstairs in a barrance hotel to look at the room where agatha christie stayed have you read anything of agatha christie simon didn't know who agatha christie was i thought she was super famous with everyone but anyway wow look at this place unchanged unchanged from the golden age of travel look at this here in the corridor i want to show you there's an old poster and original for the london to baghdad simple on orient express he used to be able to get on the train in london and travel down to baghdad on the orient express hence agatha christie here wrote part of murder on the orient express agatha christie's wow look at this this is unchanged this is unchanged here's a picture of it here she is wow how interesting this is literally the most amazing hotel i've ever seen here in aleppo yeah okay not the most comfortable probably had a bad back what who is the syrian hey look this is okay i said look i have a head i have arms i have legs i have body i said one arm can be what a jew the other arm can be what a turkmen a leg can be an armenian the other leg can be a head can be an arab and the heart can be this and this so the syrian is a after all this mixture of course has used it is a big motivation so after that in every scene you will find a part somewhere a part of an ethnic group syria is the most secular country in the middle east christians jews muslim shia sunni everyone lives peacefully in syria [Music] very good kabhibi oh look it's a it's papa smith okay well yeah good work keep going england england come to look at beautiful syria nice to meet you good luck with your work bye-bye bye-bye well as that young girl just said we're passing through one of the suits that was completely destroyed by the war you can see here the old shots not yet restored still broken but here we can see where they're starting to fix up aleppo and um you can see here what the suits looked like before aleppo was a city that was on the silk route before trade and goods pass through we're left on the way from europe to asia and vice versa um and this is what it would have looked like these are the old souks the old bazaars the old marketplaces of old aleppo look how beautiful it all would have been this city what an amazing place it would have been until of course the war came to town what do you sell in your shop yes wow what are these i see these on the streets what are these this one yeah what is it this is here for men okay like this somebody will do it like this you know yeah oh i like this one this is the best one this is the good one yeah i'm too tall i'm too tall oh yes it's difficult for me like this you look like lawrence the arabian yes yes yes yes this one abroad [Laughter] so he was born in venice and all that yeah he's on venice because the airport's named after him yeah but do you not know what he did honestly honestly marco polo i can't believe it you manufacture everything for your videos listen i can't believe i'm hanging around with a couple of dummies you just said you're gonna edit out that i knew what he said well who was marco polo you got your chance now who was marco polo are you winding me up are you winding me up listen i'll answer when you ask me proper questions who is marco polo oh here we go traveled through the silk road thank you thank you thank you exactly that's exactly he's just copied what i said same on your head could we go for a mcdonald's well now habibis that is the end of our journey across the incredible the ancient the fascinating the friendly the delicious syria simon wilton did you have a good time mate it was a tough time yeah i would say this place is probably the most pleasantly surprising place that i've been than from what i expected to what we actually got if that makes sense make sense mate should we have a little word from our other friend on this trip rami my syrian brother from another mother thank you so much for this tour thank you to for bringing attention to syria for you know giving people the authentic image here in syria and actually i want to tell you that those guys are really as fun as off camera believe me yeah i mean let me count them no i didn't pay him to say that listen guys um not really much more to say i think that we've shown you um the syria as we experienced it um yeah just wanted to show you what life is like on the streets of syria in the towns and things a little bit of the old bit of the new bit the people like this chap a nice syrian man going for a walk in the morning and um that's it nothing else to say if you're worried about coming to syria because you think it's dangerous then i won't worry about that at all that's not an issue at all um yeah it's a fascinating country and i'm looking forward to learning more about the middle east we'll explore more by the next time we'll probably be back in soviet lands more familiar territory but um shukran syria and goodbye what's goodbye bye bye oh fair enough salam salaam from syria see you later guys um yeah good one bye-bye

Channel: bald and bankrupt

Views: 4,591,546

Keywords: Syria, Middle East, bald and bankrupt, adventure, Simon Wilson, Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Food, daily bald

Id: c6d0zw-DxpU

Length: 50min 39sec (3039 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 24 2022